NY Air National Guard Heading Out on Final F-16 Mission

[Matt Molnar]

NY National Guard pilots head out for last jet mission (http://www.newsday.com/news/local/wire/newyork/ny-bc-ny--lastmission0610jun10,0,4722343.story)

June 10, 2008

SYRACUSE, N.Y. - Pilots in the New York Air National Guard's 174th Fighter Wing are on their way to the Persian Gulf for their last mission using F-16 fighter jets.

The 174th, based at Hancock Field in Syracuse, is replacing its F-16s with unmanned drones, which are remote controlled.

The pilots will make the trip to the Persian Gulf in two 8-hour legs, including several mid-air refuelings. There's a 24-hour break in between each leg. [Full Article (http://www.newsday.com/news/local/wire/newyork/ny-bc-ny--lastmission0610jun10,0,4722343.story)]

[Nick]

End of an Era!

[cancidas]

are they trasitioning to the predator, reaper or global hawk? where is the closest fighter asset to NYC going to be now?

[Mateo]

NJ ANG F-16s out of Atlantic City (which were closer than Syracuse all along, anyway). I'm not counting the PA ANG A-10s at Willow Grove because they're not air-to-air, and they're being BRACed, anyway. Lots of transports around here - McGuire, Stewart, Westhampton, Bradley, Wilmington, Harrisburg, Westover, Quonset, Martin State. Pretty much every Air Force asset within 150 miles of New York City is unarmed! If you want alert-capable fighters, I can think of Atlantic City, Otis, Andrews, Burlington, and probably Langley (!) as the five closest.

[MORS-AB-ALTO]

"The Boys From Syracuse" are switching to the Predator shortly after returning from their deployment. I've gotta get a picture of one of their snaketailed F-16's before they go.

The Jersey Devils are the closest fighter assest to NYC. Next up would be the F-15's at Barnes, with Otis having transitioned to the Intelligence role. AC was supposed to get the Otis F-15's in the original BRAC, which would have left only one unit fairly close to the metro area for the "Air Sovereignty Alert" mission. Thankfully that changed.

[Mateo]

Oh, right... Westfield, Westover; I've had a mental block about those two for as long as I can remember (and it doesn't help that the indentifiers [BAF and CEF] are dissimilar to the location name). I also mixup Otis and Quonset, mostly because I know Otis has a weird identifier, and so I think it should be OQU, when in reality that's the Rhode Island base.